Ed Sheeran scores ninth number one album with Play

Ed Sheeran has scored his ninth number one album with Play this week – and now matches Bob Dylan, Take That and Stereophonics on the list of artists with the most UK number 1 albums ever, according to the Official Charts Company.

Sheeran also went to number with last year’s +-=÷X (Tour Collection), after both his album named – and Autumn Variations also took the top spot in 2023.

These followed + in 2011, X in 2014, ÷ in 2017, No.6 Collaborations Project in 2019 as well as 2021’s =.

In third position in the albums chart this week is another new entry – That’s Showbiz Baby! by former Little Mix singer Jade, which is also the best-selling album of the past seven days in independent UK record shops.

Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend is in second place, while fourth and fifth place are taken by American duo Twenty One Pilots with Breach and Sophie Ellis-Bexter’s Perimenopop respectively.

It marks Ellis-Bextor’s sixth top 10 album overall, after she first burst onto the music scene with 2001 debut Read My Lips.

Ellis-Bextor said: “I’m all about making people feel part of the party. This album’s called Perimenopop, but I think everybody can sometimes feel like they need to flip the script on the gloomy.

“It’s an album designed to put a little bit of a spring in your step, and it’s so nice to have done it with such a lovely, extraordinary, wise, interesting and rich community.”

Fictional K-pop band Huntr/x topped the singles chart for a seventh week with their smash hit song Golden, which features in the Netflix animated musical fantasy film KPop Demon Hunters.

Two other songs from the film also make the top five – Saja Boys anthems Soda Pop at number three, and Your Idol at five.

Olivia Dean’s Man I Need takes second place in the chart, while her track Nice To Each Other also jumps two places this week to number six.

Carpenter also boast three more of her tracks, Tears (four), Manchild (eight) and When Did You Get Hot? (nine) in the top 10.